Orchestrated 'Wall'

The Israel Chamber Orchestra rocks out with a fully-staged production of Pink Floyd's masterpiece.

By MAXIM REIDER

July 12, 2007 12:44

1 minute read.

wall 88.
(photo credit: )

The Israeli Chamber Orchestra joins forces with a rock band and a girls' choir Bat Kol to play a spectacular, fully-staged production of Pink Floyd's rock opera The Wall.
"This is music which appeals to everyone," says Arie Bar Droma, a viola player with the orchestra and its CEO, who arranged the piece for this production. "I believe that people of my generation, who grew up on this music in the early '70s, can come to the concert with their children and grand-children."
But why would a chamber orchestra play rock?
"For musicians, there is no division between genres - classical music, light music - but only between good music, which speaks to you, and bad music, which is empty. And this music is wonderful - the score is rich and full of dynamics, the harmony and the rhythms are most interesting. And that's before we talk about the lyrics [which will be sung here in the original English].
"The piece is an allegory, and its message is how to bring down the wall that separates the individual from the world around him. It's a classic rock opera, and no other rock opera written since has matched it," says Bar Droma.
In addition to the five-man rock band and the orchestra, arranger Bar Droma has added a choir, which did not exist in the original score. "This is how I hear it," smiles the musician. "Someone else would have done it differently."
This NIS 1 million production of The Wall, with its 70 participants under the conduction of Nitzan Leibovitch, will be performed Thursday (July 19) and Saturday (July 21) at Hangar 11, at Shuni Fortress (Friday, July 20), at Amfipark Raanana (July 22), at Amfipark Mozkin (July 28) and at the Old Railway Station compound in Jerusalem (July 31). Four additional performances are scheduled for September.
Details at www.nrg.co.il/images/4u/the_wall/index.html

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